New Hungers for Old: One-Hundred Years of Italian-American Poetry

"New Hungers for Old is a remarkable achievement. Individually evocative and collectively superb, the poems illuminate an immense variety of Italian American voices and experiences. Yet they also extend well beyond the scope of a single ethnic category. This is that rare, thoughtful anthology for all readers wishing to reflect on the treasures and tragedies of the universal human condition." —Chandra Prasad, author of On Borrowed Wings: A Novel and editor of Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience

"Dennis Barone has produced a book of great beauty and importance that should be read by anyone who cares about American as well as Italian American writing. It offers a cornucopia of remarkable poems by generations of Italian American poets whose work mirrors the evolution of American forms from realism through postmodernism. Including famous and emerging younger talents, New Hungers for Old underscores a distinctive intersection of heritage and the larger culture in the flavor of its innovations. The dazzling variety of poems share an infatuation with life itself --- the gifts and pleasures it bestows, the harsh toll it exacts, the rebellions it provokes and the revelations of spirit that erupt from felt experience. It is a landmark collection that is essential reading." —Josephine G. Hendin, Professor of English and Tiro A Segno Professor of Italian American Studies, New York University

About the Editor:

Dennis Barone is a Professor of English at Saint Joseph College in West Hartford, Connecticut. He is the author of five books of short fiction. In 2011 Quale Press published his new book of stories: Field Report. He is also the author of two novellas, Temple of the Rat (Left Hand Books, 2000) and Godís Whisper (Spuyten Duyvil, 2005), and the author of a collection of prose poems, The Walls of Circumstance (Avec Books, 2004). Bordighera Press published his study of Italian-American narrative America / Trattabili in 2011. Barone is co-editor with James Finnegan of Visiting Wallace: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Wallace Stevens (University of Iowa Press, 2009) and editor of Beyond the Red Notebook: Essays on Paul Auster (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995). Left Hand Books published his selected poems volume one, Separate Objects, in 1998, and Shearsman Books published volume two entitled Parallel Lines in 2011. He is currently editing the anthology Connecticut Poetry: From the American Revolution to the Present (Wesleyan University Press) and in 2011 Star Cloud Press published the anthology he edited entitled New Hungers for Old: One-Hundred Years of Italian-American Poetry. A graduate of Bard College, he received his Ph.D. in American Civilization from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1992 he held the Thomas Jefferson Chair, a distinguished Fulbright lecturing award, in the Netherlands, and in 1997 he received the America Award for fiction.